Hush

It would appear our parliamentarians are in favour of censorship.

Fianna Fáil TD Thomas Burke lost the run of himself at a meeting of the Oireachtas subcommittee on Europe earlier this week, and rounded on Cardinal Sean Brady, demanding that the hapless cleric should ban the distribution of ‘Alive’ – described in one report as a stridently anti-EU Catholic newspaper – a freesheet distributed to Mass goers throughout the country.

‘The average churchgoer got the impression that it was sinful to vote for the Lisbon treaty,’ the Meath deputy complained.

Labour TD Seamus Costello complained that the newspaper ‘preached hatred of the EU.’

The hapless cardinal pointed out in his defence that he had no control over the newspaper, which is edited by a Dominican priest.

More worrying though, he told the elected representatives that he would pass on their

Alive isn’t a newspaper I’m likely to pick up very often. A glance through the current online edition reveals one contributor who professes a belief in literal creationism over evolutionary theory (‘there’s virtually no fossil evidence to back it up’) for example.

Still, I’d rather live in a country where such opinions were available, than one where they were suppressed.

By Gerard Cunningham

Gerard Cunningham occupies his time working as a journalist, writer, sub-editor, blogger and podcaster, yet still finds himself underemployed.